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Saturday, January 30, 2016

MEXICO CITY – Seven men were found dead of gunshot wounds early Thursday in two different parts of Chilpancingo, the capital of the violence-racked southern Mexican state of Guerrero, police sources told EFE.

At around 3:00 a.m., police received reports of gunfire in the Tatagildo slum, where officers subsequently found three handcuffed men aged 20-25 who had been shot dead and bore signs of torture.

The bodies of four other people killed in a similar fashion were found about an hour later near the Cerrito Rico dam on the city’s north side.

Although authorities have not yet identified the victims, they say the deaths may have been a settling of scores among rival organized crime gangs.

Chilpancingo and the nearby municipalities of Tixtla and Chilapa have been racked by a months-long turf war involving three criminal groups: the Ardillos and the Rojos, based in and around Chilapa; and the Sierra del Sur cartel, whose home is the state capital.

Nine youths were kidnapped in that same region just two days ago.

Six of them were abducted at a motorcycle repair shop located in a Chilpancingo school zone, while the other three were kidnapped in Tixtla’s La Villita neighborhood.

Tixtla is home to the Ayotzinapa Normal School, an all-male teacher-training institute. In September 2014, 43 students enrolled in that institution went missing in the nearby city of Iguala after coming under attack by local police.

On Wednesday, an operation involving some 3,500 soldiers and 200 federal and state police was launched in a bid to reduce cartel-related violence in several Guerrero municipalities.

The operation spans indigenous-majority Chilapa, Zitlala, Cuilapan, Zototitlan and Ahuacuotzingo, which have been plagued by organized crime over the past three years.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Guerrero, one of Mexico’s most violent states, since the disappearance of the 43 trainee teachers 16 months ago.

MEXICO CITY - The daughter of notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman has intellectual property rights over her father's pseudonym until 2020, according to the Mexican Institute of Industrial Property (IMPI) and the Global Brand Database.

Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman Salazar, daughter of the Sinaloa Cartel leader, can use the name 'El Chapo' in a number of sectors regulated by the International Classification of Goods and Services for trademark registration.

Marketable product categories for which she can use the name 'El Chapo' include insurance, real estate affairs, precious metals, leather and faux-leather, and toys, among others.

Her mother and first wife of the drug lord, Maria Alejandrina Salazar Hernandez, also tried to get in on the action by registering the trademark 'El Chapito Guzman', 'El Chapito' and 'Don Chapo Guzman' under a sector that relates to alcoholic beverages.

But the IMPI refused, explaining that the names are 'contrary to morals and good customs and public order' because of obvious links to Guzman.

Jose Antonio Jimenez Magaña, who provides legal representation to the two women, argued that the names are commonly used and have no connection with Guzman.

The IMPI, however, said the combination of names 'follows the idea of a particular person'.

Salazar and Hernandez aren't the only ones who have tried to market the 'El Chapo' brand.

Guzman's current wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, tried unsuccessfully to register the name 'Joaquín Archivaldo Guzman Loera El Chapo Guzman', and two people without links to the family have attempted to register trademarks seemingly linked to the cartel leader for sectors including clothing and scientific instruments.

MEXICO CITY – Mexico City, officially known until now as the Distrito Federal, became Mexico’s 32nd state on Friday with the enactment of a constitutional amendment giving the sprawling metropolis more independence from the national government.

“Mexico City remains the seat of the branches of the Union government and capital of the United Mexican States, but now will have autonomy regarding its internal regime and organization,” President Enrique Peña Nieto said during a ceremony to mark the change.

The new state will soon convene elections for a 100-member constituent assembly charged with drafting a constitution.

The assembly is to start work on Sept. 15 and the charter of the new state, Ciudad de Mexico, is expected to take effect in September 2018.

With the change in status, the capital’s mayor will become governor and the presidents of the city’s 16 boroughs will be transformed into mayors of separate municipalities.

The city’s existing municipal assembly is to be reborn as a state legislature.

The federal Senate loses its prerogative of removing the head of the capital government, while the Ciudad de Mexico governor will be able to appoint a state prosecutor and police chief without the approval of the Mexican president.

RIO DE JANEIRO – The mayor of the Brazilian town of Goianesia do Para, Joao Gomes, was murdered Sunday night while he was attending a wake, local media reported. He was 62.

Gomes, popularly known as “Russo,” was attending a wake downtown in the municipality in the northern Brazilian state of Para, when two people wearing helmets that covered their faces, entered the funeral home and shot him six times in the head, according to witnesses cited in the local daily O Liberal.

The mayor died on the spot, while the killers got away on a motorcycle.

Police are investigating the possible motives for the crime.

Gomes, who belonged to the Party of the Republic, or PR, and was serving his first term in office, planned to run in the local elections to be held next October in Brazil.

BAGHDAD — Three Americans reported missing from a Baghdad neighborhood were kidnapped by militiamen from an apartment in the capital, a senior police official and a resident of the building said Monday.

A statement from the Baghdad Operations Command confirmed that “three people with American citizenship” were abducted in the capital.

A Baghdad police colonel, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said the Americans are employed as contractors at Baghdad International Airport. He did not say which company employed the individuals.

Another police official in Baghdad, a major general also speaking on the condition of anonymity, gave the names of the abducted individuals as Amro Mohamed, Wael al-Mahdawi and Rusul Farad, a woman. The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad did not respond to a request to verify the names. Two senior security officials said the missing Americans are of Iraqi origin.

The three Americans appear to have been seized by Shiite militiamen in the Dora neighborhood in southern Baghdad, the police colonel said. The area from which they were taken is controlled by Shiite militias, including Iran-backed Asaib Ahl al-Haq, or League of the Righteous, he said.

The colonel said the group had been invited to the home of their Iraqi interpreter. But a resident of the apartment building where the Americans were reportedly seized said they were taken from a second-story apartment that he described as a well-known brothel. The police major general also said the apartment was a brothel. The resident said the apartment is subject to frequent raids by Asaib Ahl ­al-Haq, although typically the men found inside are simply told to leave. He said that he witnessed part of the raid but that it happened late at night and was over quickly.

The Baghdad Operations Command described the apartment as “suspicious” in its statement. An intelligence officer assigned to Dora said that agents had raided the apartment in the wake of the kidnappings and found whiskey bottles but that the residence had been abandoned. The owner of the apartment is a man locals refer to as Abu Maria, the intelligence officer and other residents in the area said. Abu Maria is known for throwing illicit parties, they said.

Monday, January 25, 2016

On the eve of the trip to Paris by the mullahs' president Hassan Rouhani, a week of campaigning will begin on Sunday, January 24 in protest to the wave of executions in Iran and Tehran’s export of terrorism and extremism and their support for Bashar al-Assad in the massacre of the people of Syria.

The campaigning will come to a climax on January 28 when there will be a major rally by Iranians and their international supporters as well as French citizens.

Several French Parliamentary committees comprised of members of the National Assembly and Senate, and Parliamentary committees from other European countries, dozens of NGOs including France-Libertés, several French student unions and University professors unions and more than 300 Iranian associations from across Europe are sponsoring or supporting the call to rally on January 28.

Simultaneously, there will be an extensive internet campaign highlighting the various aspects of the situation in Iran, with particular focus on Rouhani's near-3-year record.

Events set to take place during the week-long campaign will include:

January 24 – Declaration by French mayors condemning human rights violations in Iran and supporting the Iranian ResistanceJanuary 25 – Announcement of support of Mayor of Paris' 1st District for No To Rouhani rallyJanuary 25 – Announcement of support of Mayor of Paris' 2nd District for No To Rouhani rallyJanuary 26 – A call by the Committee of French Muslims Against Extremism and for Human RightsJanuary 26 – A call by human rights organizations and Parliamentary groups condemning widespread human rights abuses in Iran and demanding Rouhani be held accountable for these crimesJanuary 27 – Rally in central ParisJanuary 27 – Candle-lit vigil in central Paris in the evening in memory of victims of human rights violations during Rouhani's presidency.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

U.S. intelligence agencies investigating the kidnapping of three Americans in Baghdad, Iraq last week are focusing their probe on three groups closely affiliated with the Iranian regime, U.S. government sources said on Thursday.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are the principle focus of the investigation into the armed kidnapping of the three Americans in the Dora neighborhood, south of Baghdad, the sources said.

The three men are employed by a still-unidentified small company doing work for General Dynamics under a larger contract with the U.S. Army.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq, Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Badr Organization are Shi’ite militia groups that are part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Front, a group closely tied to Iran, according to the Counter Terrorism Project, a New York-based advocacy group.

The Badr Organisation in Iraq was created in Iran in 1982 by the Iranian regime's Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC).

A report by Reuters in December 2015was revealed that reports by U.S. government investigations which have never been made public says Badr Organization has been running secret prisons and is involved in torture and assassinations.

The crimes carried out by the Badr Organization, headed by Hadi al-Ameri (al-Amiri), have been consistently overlooked by the United States, the report by Reuters said.

Whenever Ameri visits Tehran, he meets Ali Khamenei, the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader. He expresses full obedience to Khamenei as his subservient.

“The decade-old U.S. investigation of the secret prison implicates officials and political groups in a wave of sectarian killings that helped ignite a civil war. It also draws worrying parallels to the U.S. government’s muted response today to alleged abuses committed in the name of fighting Islamic State,” Reuters investigative report said.

CALI, Colombia - An explosives detection dog of the Colombian Military died after saving 30 soldiers from being victims of an anti-personnel mine in a rural area of the municipality of Suarez, in the southwest of the country, according to military sources.Azabache, a trained canine taking part in various operations of the Third Army Division over the past three years, was severely injured by the explosion of a mine Wednesday while moving alongside a group of soldiers in the small village Patio Bonito, in the department of Cauca.The explosion alerted the soldiers, who immediately rushed to aid Azabache and provided first-aid before he was taken by helicopter to a veterinary center in Cali.According to veterinarians of the Third Army Division, the explosion caused internal injuries which led to the death of the canine, who was two years short of reaching his retirement and ending his military career."As for any of our soldiers, we feel great remorse over the death of Azabache, who had managed to locate a great quantity of explosives during his three years of work in the institution," said the commander of the Third Division, General Luis Rojas.The general noted that the team which Azabache belonged to was in an area where drug gangs have influence.The canine's guide, soldier Victor Betancourt, conveyed the news to his superiors in a short message by radio.The canine stood out among 450 other canines which form part of the bomb detecting team of the Third Division and it was already highly praised as it had just saved them last Tuesday from two anti-personnel mines.Azabache's funeral this Thursday was held with a military ceremony and he was buried by the soldiers he protected in the vicinity of the command post of the Apolo Task Force in Cauca.In Colombia, antipersonnel mines and other explosive devices used in the armed conflict that has been ongoing for more than five decades have caused up to 11,800 deaths or injured during the past 25 years, according to figures from the NGO Colombian Campaign against Mines (CCCM).Although there is no official estimate on the numbers of explosive devices planted, the government estimates that demining would take at least a decade.According to CCCM, the cost to demine a square meter is around $1,000; compared to $1.20 it costs to produce a mine.

On January 9, Iranians held a protest in Paris against human rights abuses by the mullahs' regime in Iran. The demonstrators pointed out that executions have significantly increased under the presidency of Hassan Rouhani.

They denounced Rouhani's planned trip to Paris on 28 January and urged the French government and European Union to condition their relations with Iranian regime on improvement of the human rights situation and an end to executions in Iran.

The Iranians in Paris' Trocadero Square also held up banners with Twitter hashtags #No2Rouhani and #StopExecutionsIran. The banners displayed human rights abuses in Iran.

On Thursday January 28, on the day of Rouhani’s visit to Paris, a major rally will be held in Trocadero Square to say no to Rouhani, president of 2000 executions in Iran, and to denounce his presence in France. The protest is organized by Comité de soutien aux Droits de l’Homme en Iran.

More than 2,000 people have been executed during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as President of the regime. This figure is the highest rate of executions in the past 25 years which has already secured Iran’s place as the nation with the most executions per capita.

The human rights situation has been deteriorating rapidly in Iran. The international community should condemn the human rights violations in Iran, in particular arbitrary, mass and public executions, and refer the human rights dossier of the mullahs’ regime to the United Nations Security Council to hold the mullahs accountable for crime against humanity.

Monday, January 18, 2016

The religious fascism ruling Iran increases hangings concurrent with the implementation of the nuclear deal on the verge of sham elections

The antihuman Iranian regime that closed its infamous dossier for 2015 with over one thousand executions has begun the New Year by ramping up executions throughout the country such that in just the first two weeks of this year 53 executions have been registered. The forced retreat from the nuclear bomb and the implementation of the nuclear deal with the P5+1, the upcoming elections for the Assembly of Experts and the parliament, and the intensification of the power struggle within regime’s factions have tightened the noose around the regime’s neck.

To confront these crises, the Iranian regime is planning to increase its death sentences and climate of terror in the society to thwart the expansion of popular protests and the explosion of popular wrath. Since the beginning of January to this day, the clerical regime has executed 53 prisoners, including one woman, in various cities. Four of the prisoners have been hanged in public and most prisoners were executed in groups.

On January 16, four prisoners were hanged in Rasht’s central prison and on January 14 one prisoner was hanged in Yazd’s central prison.

On the previous day, there was a group hanging of six prisoners in Urmia prison, one prisoner was executed in Shiraz prison, and another one in Bojnourd.

On January 12, four prisoners were collectively hanged in Karaj’s Central Prison and another prisoner was executed in Zanjan.

On January 11, three prisoners were hanged in Sari prison and one was hanged in Mashhad prison.

On January 9 and 10, two prisoners were hanged in Rasht’s central prison, three were executed in Larestan (Fars Province), and one prisoner was hanged in Khorramabad prison.

On January 7, two young men were hanged in public in Shabestar and Khoy, three prisoners were sent to the gallows in Ardabil’s central prison, and one prisoner was executed in Hamadan’s central prison.

On January 6 there were 13 executions; five prisoners in Gohardasht (Rajai Shahr) Prison, three in Karaj Central Prison, and five prisoners, including a woman, in Tabriz central prison.

From January 2 to 5, five prisoners were executed in prisons in Noshahr, Khorramabad and Urmia and one prisoner was hanged in public in the town of Sourak Miandoroud in Mazandaran Province.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of IranJanuary 16, 2016

NCRI - Text of speech by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, in a New Year ceremony with French supporters of the Resistance at the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris:

10 January 2016

Dear friends and neighbors,

My best wishes for the New Year 2016. On behalf of the Iranian people and Resistance, I wish a year filled with happiness and fraternity for the people of France.

I hope it will be a year of progress, prosperity and security for France, and the year of freedom for my people in Iran.

In the words of the great Persian poet Hafez, "We are going to paint a new design of the sky!"

Like most Iranian poets, Hafez was strongly opposed to religious fanaticism and extremism. So, in the dark era of the Mongol attack on Iran, he wrote poems that are eternally full of hope for freedom and humanity. It is the same spirit that is felt here in the beginning of the New Year.

Now that our world is targeted by extremism under the banner of Islam, like Hafez, we invite everyone to a new drive to build a world free of religious fascism of the Iranian mullahs and fundamentalists of the same nature, like DAESH. A world based on tolerance and freedom.

Last year was a harsh one for the Middle East because of the persistence of bloodbaths in Syria and Iraq, and the continuation of suffering, displacement and repression.

It was also a difficult year for Iran because of stepped up suppression of women and followers of other religions and because of nearly one thousand executions under the so-called moderate Rouhani government. He also had a rocket attack launched on Camp Liberty which left dozens killed.

In the depth of this darkness, however, the flame of hope is brighter than ever.

Contrary to the mullahs of Iran who could not hide their pleasure over the Paris massacres by DAESH (ISIS or ISIL) extremists, we saw the beautiful flame of hope in the beautiful solidarity with the Iranian Resistance after the rocket attack on Camp Liberty.

We also saw that hope is ever livelier in Iran when Iranian teachers took to the streets and staged protests all across the country. We saw it in the demonstrations of the people of Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, and in the gatherings of angry families of political prisoners and victims of executions outside Tehran’s Evin Prison.

And finally, we can see this flame in the wave of protests by the people of France against human rights abuses in Iran on the eve of Rouhani’s visit to Paris at the end of this month.

Rouhani seeks to conceal the detestable image of the Iranian regime. This duplicity, on his part and on the part of other mullahs, is an affront to human conscience the world over.

On the one hand, the mullahs rejoice the November 13th massacre in Paris; on the other hand, Rouhani ostensibly condemns the attack.

This is a division of role that must not deceive anyone.

Rouhani defends the executions in Iran. Under his government, more than two thousand people have been executed. Rouhani explicitly supports Bashar Assad's dictatorship. He has done his utmost to support the IRGC's war machine. Two weeks ago, he issued an order for the expansion of the IRGC missile system.

Surely, everyone is appalled by all these things.

Dear friends,

Despite their atrocities, the mullahs and DAESH experienced some bitter setbacks in 2015.

The mullahs’ retreat from building the atomic bomb is a defeat for the regime. The Iranian Resistance is proud to have exposed this program which drove the mullahs into a deadlock. Fortunately, France’s decisiveness in the negotiations prevented giving more concessions to the mullahs.

The Iranian regime also experienced a strategic setback in Syria and the coalition of Arab and Muslim countries has in effect isolated it in the region.

It was a major achievement that the world got united against extremism under the banner of Islam, because the epicenter of this extremism is in Tehran.

So, we are beginning 2016 with these great achievements.

The more France and the world focus on the Tehran regime and its allies as the source of fundamentalism, the closer they get to peace and security.

DAESH can be conquered. However, the first step in doing so, is to defeat Assad’s dictatorship that fosters DAESH with the backing of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.

We call on the international community and especially France to adopt a firm policy to expel the Iranian regime from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.

The world can free itself from fundamentalism only when the clerical regime in Iran, that is the epicenter of fundamentalism, is overthrown. We call on the world community to respect the Iranian people’s struggle for the overthrow of the mullahs.

The Iranian Resistance advocates a tolerant republic based on the separation of religion and state, abolition of the death penalty, and women’s equality in tomorrow’s Iran.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have come a long and difficult way together. We passed the test of June 17, 2003. We defeated the mullahs and their lobbies’ demonization of the Resistance. We put an end in a 15-year quest to the legal case they had made up against the Resistance.

Thanks to our solidarity, we have had the very positive experience of coexistence between two cultures and two religions.

The mullahs and fundamentalists advance their objectives by provoking enmity towards followers of other religions.

But you and we have demonstrated an exemplary coexistence and friendship.

You have found that the presence of Iranian Resistance members here has brought about friendship and fraternity. And we found that the people of France are friends of Iranians and friends of democratic and tolerant Muslims.

We are capable of doing a lot together. We can do things that are essential to freedom and human rights in Iran, things that are vital to overcome extremism under the banner of Islam, and necessary to protect Camp Liberty residents.

United States Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) is calling for President Barack Obama to move forward with new sanctions against Iran's regime over a pair of recent ballistic missile tests, The Hill reported on Monday.

"I don't know why the administration has hesitated, but I am urging them publicly and privately to move ahead with those designations," he told reporters. "I am concerned with the hesitation to move forward with the ballistic missile related designations."

Sen. Coons is among a growing number of Democrats, including some who supported the Iran nuclear deal, who have called on the president to take a firm response to two missile tests late last year. They argue that the administration's response should show Iran's regime that it will not be able to cheat on the nuclear agreement.

The Obama administration suggested late last year that it was preparing new sanctions against individuals tied to the Iranian regime's missile program, before walking back those statements.

Sen. Coons, who supported the Iran nuclear deal, said it was "very clearly communicated and it played a role in my decision" to support the nuclear agreement that the United States was still able to sanction Iran's regime on non-nuclear issues including its missile program or support for terrorist groups.

The administration has gotten bipartisan criticism over its handling of the Iranian missile tests, which lawmakers say violate United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Senate Republicans are calling on Obama to block lifting sanctions under the Iran nuclear deal because of the recent ballistic missile tests, rejecting the administration's argument that the two are separate issues. The move would likely undermine the nuclear agreement.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

ROME, Italy — A murder investigation was underway Sunday after the body of an American woman was found in her apartment in Florence, Italian police said.

Ashley Olsen, who is originally from Florida, was found with bruises around her neck, Florence prosecutor's office spokeswoman Maddalena Carosi told NBC News.

Ashley OlsenRowena Bernardo

Her Italian boyfriend is not a suspect at present, Carosi said.

Local media reports said the 35-year-old's body was found on a bed in the apartment, which is located in Florence's historic center.

According to the AP, Olsen's body was identified by the her father, who reportedly teaches at a Florence school.

The woman had neck injuries.Maurizio Degl'Innocenti / AP

La Repubblica daily said Olsen loved art and had organized events connected to the art world.

Rowena Bernardo, a coworker and friend of Olsen's in Florence, remembered Ashley as one of the most wonderful people she had ever met. Bernardo and Olsen worked together in Florence's fashion industry.

"She can come out with great styling in a matter of minutes. All of our shoots, she styled herself," Bernardo wrote to NBC News in an email. "She is very smart and naturally cool. We would have drinks and would confide with each other on life and all.

"She is very dear to me, she is great as a friend and I consider her more of a younger sister."

Saturday, January 9, 2016

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia- Saudi Arabia’s soccer federation has said its clubs will not play Asian Champions League matches in Iran amid rising diplomatic tension, Associated Press reported JAN 8, 2016.The decision at a SAFF executive meeting comes days after individual clubs refused to travel to Iran for safety reasons when the competition kicks off next month. Two Saudi clubs are already scheduled to play in Iran and a playoff round could create two more matches there.Sporting tensions increased days before the countries’ national under-23 teams begin the 2016 Olympic qualifying tournament in Qatar.Saudi Arabia severed diplomatic ties with Iran on Sunday.On Thursday, the Saudi soccer body said it awaits an Asian Football Confederation response to its request to order matches for its clubs in Iran moved to neutral countries.An AFC spokesman said Thursday it is “monitoring the situation.”The Asian body’s president, and FIFA presidential candidate, Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al Khalifa is a royal family member in Bahrain which has also cut ties with Iran.

NCRI - Iranians in central Paris on Saturday held a protest against human rights abuses by the mullahs' regime.

The Iranian supporters of the main Iranian opposition group People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) pointed out that executions have significantly increased under the presidency of mullah Hassan Rouhani.

They denounced Rouhani's planned trip to Paris on 28 January, and they urged the French government and European Union to base their relations with Iran's regime on an improvement in the human rights situation in Iran.

The Iranian protestors in Paris' Trocadero Square also held up banners with Twitter hashtags #No2Rouhani and #StopExecutionsIran.

Many Parisians were drawn to the rally and participated in Tweeting photographs of themselves holding up signs denouncing Rouhani's appalling human rights record.

The human rights situation has been deteriorating rapidly in Iran. More than 2,000 individuals have been executed during Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as President of the regime. This is the highest rate of executions in the past 25 years, and it reflects an increase over figures that had already secured Iran’s place as the nation with the most executions per capita.

On December 17, 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution strongly condemning the brutal and systematic violation of human rights in Iran, in particular the mass and arbitrary executions, increasing violence and discrimination against women and ethnic and religious minorities.

Following the adoption of the 62nd UN resolution censuring human rights abuses in Iran, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect Maryam Rajavi called on the UN Security Council to hold the leaders of the clerical regime accountable and prosecute them for crimes against humanity. She underlined that this is a necessary step towards respecting the international community's vote that condemned the systematic and flagrant violations of human rights in Iran.

Mr Lachover said that he had not been seriously injured in the accident on Wednesday.“Superficial stab wounds, had some stitches and was released back home,” he wrote on Twitter. “Many thanks to everyone for your concern!”

The Mexican drug baron, who runs the notorious Sinaloa cartel, made it clear IS had “made a mistake” by destroying the cartel’s drug shipment.

"You [IS] are not soldiers,” El Chapo wrote, according to the unnamed blogger cited by cartelblog.com. “My men will destroy you…” he promised Al Baghdadi.

“Your god cannot save you from the true terror that my men will levy at you if you continue to impact my operation,” it said.

El Chapo became Mexico's top drug lord in 2003. He was believed in 2011 to have surpassed infamous “cocaine king” Pablo Escobar, with the US Drug Enforcement Administration calling El Chapo the biggest drug tycoon ever.

El Chapo is wanted by Mexico, Interpol and the US, which has offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture.

Guzman was first arrested in 1993 and spent a decade in a maximum-security prison in Mexico before escaping. He spent 13 years on the run before his recapture in 2014.

In 2015, El Chapo made a prison break through a 1.5-kilometer long, 10-meter deep underground tunnel dug from his cell, reportedly having paid as much as $50 million in bribes to facilitate his escape.

SANTIAGO – A member of Chile’s militarized national police, the Carabineros, was fatally shot by another cop in the southern town of Chillan Viejo, authorities said Wednesday.

The killing took place late Tuesday, as Cpl. Daniel Aravena Rodriguez, 26, and his parents were walking near a checkpoint on their way to the wake of a recently deceased relative.

Carabineros Cpl. Sebastian Fuentealba Toro approached Aravena and spoke to him, but the other man did not answer.

Within seconds, Fuentealba drew his gun and shot Aravena five times, killing him instantaneously.

“Daniel was going to the wake of another family member with his mom and dad. Then this person appeared, who is also a Carabinero, practically the same age ... he came, he pulled his weapon and he fired. He didn’t give him time for anything. He killed him in front of his mom and dad,” the victim’s aunt, Paula Vejar, told Radio Cooperativa.

Fuentealba fled the scene after the shooting, but later surrendered to authorities, who suggested the murder was the result of a personal dispute between the two men.

MEXICO CITY – Police officers in the northeastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas rescued 45 migrants from Guatemala and Honduras in Reynosa, located across the Rio Grande from McAllen, Texas, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group said.

State police officers responding to a tip from the public went to a house in the border city’s Puertas del Sol district, where people were being held against their will, the joint state-federal agency said in a statement.

Officers found 42 men and three women at the house, of whom 44 were from Guatemala and one from Honduras, the agency said, adding that the migrants were headed for the United States.

No arrests were made during the operation, the Tamaulipas Coordination Group said.

The migrants were turned over to the National Migration Institute, or INM, for processing.

Tens of thousands of Central Americans undertake the hazardous journey across Mexico each year on their way to the United States.

The trek is a dangerous one, with criminals and corrupt Mexican officials preying on the migrants.

Gangs kidnap, exploit and murder migrants, who are often targeted in extortion schemes, Mexican officials say.

In 2010, 72 migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Brazil and Ecuador were murdered in Tamaulipas.

Mexican marines found the migrants’ bodies at a ranch in the city of San Fernando on Aug. 24, 2010, marking the worst massacre of migrants in Mexico’s history.

Wednesday, January 6, 2016

U.S. Border Patrol agents say they found 31 immigrants who entered the U.S. illegally hiding in a single apartment in a small town on the Texas-Mexico border.

The Border Patrol said Wednesday that those arrested included immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Agents also arrested a Mexican woman they say was the caretaker of the apartment.

Also Wednesday, the Border Patrol said 10 undocumented immigrants were hidden behind a fake wall inside a commercial truck at a checkpoint in Falfurrias, about 90 miles north of the border. Agents arrested the driver, who was not identified.

Border crossings of children and family members in particular have spiked in recent months. Experts blame gang violence in Central America for driving citizens north at numbers that are approaching last summer's surge.

The four police are barred from leaving the country and cannot approach the victim, who remains under psychological care “following the brutal attack he suffered at the hands of the police force,” the indictment says.

The World Organization Against Torture said in 2013 that the number of torture and mistreatment cases as part of the criminalization of social protest in Chile “is worrying.”

MEXICO CITY – The murder of Gisela Mota, mayor of the central Mexican city of Temixco, is linked to a dispute between rival gangs for control of police departments ahead of the implementation of a unified command system, Morelos Gov. Graco Ramirez said.

“In the past few weeks, the threats increased” against mayors who supported having their local departments assigned to a unified command under the Morelos state police, the governor told Radio Formula.

The threats were made by the Los Rojos and Guerreros Unidos gangs, which have been fighting for control of the state and “are determined to take advantage of this political situation (the start of the terms of several mayors) and again take, like before, control of the police,” Ramirez said.

The disappearance of 43 Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School students on Sept. 26, 2014, in Iguala, a city in neighboring Guerrero state, has been linked to the gang war.

The official version of events, which has been challenged by relatives of the victims, is that Iguala municipal police officers detained the students and then handed them over to Guerreros Unidos members, who thought they belonged to Los Rojos, murdered them and burned the bodies.

The 33-year-old Mota was gunned down in front of her family last Saturday by hitmen who burst into her house a day after she was sworn in as mayor.

“It’s with the monitoring of the (security) cameras that (the assailants) are spotted trying to get away and they are found around some paths heading toward the Temixco airport, and that’s where the police engaged them” in a shootout, said the governor, a member of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution, or PRD.

Two of the suspects, one identified as a gang boss with a prior criminal record in Guerrero and Mexico states, were killed, Ramirez said.

“He was a very important hitman in the Los Rojos group and this same cell was the one that dumped a mutilated body in front of the state police offices on Dec. 29 in an act of provocation,” the governor said.

Three suspects have been arrested in the case – a minor, an 18-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman – and more arrests will likely be made, Ramirez said.

Ramirez signed an executive order imposing a unified police command in 15 cities that had been resisting the policy on Sunday.

Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos, has refused to replace its local police department with a unified state command and Mayor Cuauhtemoc Blanco has clashed with the governor over the policy

MEXICO CITY – The newly installed mayor of the central Mexican city of Temixco was killed Saturday, a day after she took office, officials said.

“They’ve informed me of the attack on the mayor of Temixco, Gisela Mota, a young and dear colleague. This a challenge by organized crime. We won’t give in,” Graco Ramirez – the governor of the central state of Morelos, where Temixco is located – said on Twitter.

Ramirez, like Mota a member of the center-left PRD party, said the suspected perpetrators of the attack – which local media said also left two others dead at the mayor’s home – had already been arrested.

The PRD’s chairman, Agustin Basave, lamented the mayor’s murder, demanded justice and expressed his condolences to the family of the victim.

The politician’s bodyguards requested police assistance after the gunmen opened fire at her home, media reports said, adding that after they caught up to them a shootout ensued that left two of the assailants dead and two others arrested.

Mota was killed a day after the state government launched a public safety operation involving the participation of federal forces.

A study released in 2015 by the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice, a non-governmental organization, said Morelos’ capital, Cuernavaca, located just north of Temixco, had replaced Acapulco as Mexico’s most violent city.

Morelos, which borders Mexico City to the south, has the highest violent crime rates among Mexico’s 32 federal entities, the same study showed.